


don’t leave me alone

by mysafeplaceishere



Series: magenta eyes [3]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Kisses, Gentle Kissing, Late Night Conversations, and reader being there to support him, reader starts a petition to kick the Tallests’ butts, zim being emotionally insecure, zim is a tiny twink, zim tries his best to be the goodest alien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysafeplaceishere/pseuds/mysafeplaceishere
Summary: Zim recently found out his mission was a lie from the Tallests. And you, being the patient person you are, waited for Zim to open up about it.When the dam of emotions broke after so long, they didn’t just break. They shattered.
Relationships: The Almighty Tallest & Zim, Zim (Invader Zim)/Original Female Character(s), Zim (Invader Zim)/Reader
Series: magenta eyes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790968
Comments: 6
Kudos: 139





	don’t leave me alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MetalMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetalMistress/gifts).



> I WANTED ANGST AND FLUFF. So I made some. This is for you, Mistress. ;)
> 
> This was hard to write because I felt like I was drifting from Zim’s personality too much in some parts. Then again, we see that he can become upset over things (like that one unaired episode of Zim being depressed) and I snatched the opportunity up.
> 
> Also, I’d like to add that the Tallests are the worst and I hate them. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. 
> 
> Enjoy this emotional rollercoaster starring an alien who just doesn’t know how to admit that being alone scares him.

Some people spend their free time drinking their lives away at a bar, some people might dress up real fancy to dance the night away at a club, and some people might hit the town to find trouble.

You, on the other hand, much prefer laying on the pink couch in Zim’s base, digging your face into Zim’s chest and holding Gir tight in your embrace. The glow from the tv provides just enough light for you to maneuver around when need be. Not like you’ve needed it, though. Once you laid you head on Zim’s chest, body positioned between his legs and one armed looped under his back, there was no moving.

That was an hour ago and you still refuse to move. Especially since a time like this doesn’t happen too often. Zim likes to stay particularly busy—you like to think it is because of his restlessness due to not serving the Tallests anymore—and you have to force him to take breaks with you. But this time he suggested watching cartoons and chilling on the couch.

Zim did.

You had noticed a change in his behavior when he finally realized the Tallests wanted noting to do with him. That was a couple months ago and he seemed to have got over it with a snap of his fingers to someone who didn’t know him. You, however, monitored his every move and every word. He was still obnoxiously loud, as you have grown accustomed to, and very much prideful in his ways but some moments he would just stop what he was doing. Sometimes during conversations, sometimes when he was walking through the house, and even one time when you were kissing all over his face. He always has to be doing something productive and to see him staring at a wall with a haze of uselessness shining his eyes squeezed your heart tight.

You never tried to ask him about it. Zim has a hard enough time opening up, especially to the people he cares for, so you stepped back and offered your open arms for when he needed them. 

Today was the first day he let his pride go and accepted those open arms.

Who were you to refuse? A terrible girlfriend if you had, but luckily for him, his shiny eyes staring up at you was too much. Not to mention Gir’s enthusiasm after hearing Zim’s uncharacteristic pleas for some down time.

You still won’t ask him about it. He knows that you know that something is amiss in himself. He knows, and you’re willing to wait for him to feel comfortable enough to open up. No one in the universe could force you to pry open his thoughts. This is on his time table and you’re prepared to wait.

Simple as that. All you can do is be there for him in the meantime.

Your eyes glance up at the clock above the tv. A tight-lipped grimace makes its way onto your face at finding that it’s past midnight. Your eyes travel down to Gir who is tucked between your free arm and your ribs, rocking side to side with out of tune hums. His one lone antenna bounces at the gentle swaying motions, optics trained on the tv.

You peer up at Zim with a breath in your lungs to tell him that you need to go. As if sensing your next actions, Zim’s legs tighten around your waist and, if possible, pulls you closer. With your ear pressed to his chest, you can hear as his squeedilyspooch quicken in its beats. His eyes won’t meet yours but you know he doesn’t want you to say what you’re about to say.

Zim never did like it when you left for the day. He has some odd ways of showing his frustration with it but at this point you’re accustomed to everything that comes in the package of small, angry alien boyfriends with emotional baggage.

“Hey, Zim...” you murmur into his tunic, eyes still staring up at his face.

The bubblegum pink pupils of his eyes shutter of your meek tone of voice. Reluctantly, his eyes slip from the tv to your own. They’re soft gazing down at your face lit up by tv glow—almost too uncharacteristically soft.

“It’s midnight and I should really get home. Don’t worry, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

You shift from your lax position and sit up on your knees. Gir moves to the unoccupied side of the couch so his favorite show isn’t interrupted. Zim stays put but his antennae are held high above his head. You place a hand on his cheek, thumb running just under his eye, and his body goes lax into the couch. He eventually tenses you at noticing your skeptical stare and turns his head away so your hand is left hanging in the air without something to touch.

He rolls off the couch with a grumble and dusts off his tunic while you stand to your feet. You watch him hiss a few Irken slurs under his breath before crossing his arms and looking up at you with a loud _humph._ A grin lights up your face at his diva behavior.

“Egh, don’t let any smelly humans get you on your way home. If anyone tries to touch you, just use the safety button I made,” he wiggles his antennae at you with narrowed eyes.

A laugh at his mother hen-like nature bubbles up your throat. You lean down to press a kiss to his forehead, all while grinning down at him. You get a hiss back in return to the kiss not being placed where he wanted it.

He won’t admit such a thing as wanting a smooch on the lips, but he doesn’t have to say such things. You already know how he works.

“Yes, oh mother of mine. I shan’t let any smelly humans touch me despite being one myself,” you run your finger over his scalp and antennae—to which he stutters over, “I’ll be fine, babe. Don’t worry so much.”

You turn on your heel and head to the door whilst giving Gir a goodbye wave. During this moment of departure, you miss the way Zim reaches out to stop you from leaving, flinching at the realization, and jerking his hand back to his side as if it hadn’t happened. When you’re half way out the door, you turn around to blow a kiss in his direction, accompanied with a joyful crinkle of your eyes. Zim clenches his hands into fists and gives an eye roll in return.

Then you close the door, unaware that you left Zim standing in the middle of his living room silently calling out in distress, too prideful to openly state why.

Zim continues to stare at the door, hands and antennae trembling. His face remains blank. Emotionless, monotone and almost pained. Gir’s presence does no good in calming the anxiety brewing deep inside his chest. If anything, it makes him feel more alone.

If there was a way you could hear him internally pleading for you to come back over and over and over again.

_PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE._

•••

You stretch your arms above your head to pop your back, eyes squeezed closed. A few notches in your spine crack at the pressure before you sigh in relief. You then climb into your bed, comfortably slipping beneath your blankets and snuggling close to your pillows.

You proceed stare out of your window with a crinkle in your brows. While your body is tired and screams for rest, your mind doesn’t seem to want to flip off for the night. All your anxieties and worries and pressures of life come bubbling up like blood from broken skin.

You’re restless. Oh, so restless.

This isn’t your first sleepless night and will definitely not be your last, and yet—this time it feels wrong. Wrong to be laying in your bed at night, wrong to be worrying over worries you haven’t even deciphered, and if feels so wrong to be here without Zim in your arms.

You should have invited him to come stay with you. Maybe you should have stayed at his house for the night.

Something was off about this last visit. The tender couch moment wasn’t the problem, it was the reason behind it. Zim was physically there with you, pinned under your body weight and accepting it with grace, but he wasn’t there mentally. That soft for you, far away look in his eyes told you so.

Leaving didn’t seem out of the ordinary. His face adorned a scowl at your leaving, to which happens every time you leave, but the way his antennae stood up as tall as they could told you he was mulling over something. Now what that something was, you might not ever find out. Zim likes to keep his secrets and insecurities shoved deep inside his core where no one can find them. Even himself.

But you can’t help but think back to the moment where you twisted back around to blow him a kiss. He was pulled into himself, eyes were glossy, and he looked small. Not his usual type of small, no, the type of emotionally stunted small. There was no Zim standing there watching you leave. That was the shell of someone falling apart and too scared to admit it.

You sink deeper into your bed with a frown. The next time the Tallests are mentioned, you’re going to demand to speak with them. That didn’t just break Zim, they shattered him. You will have more than enough to cover with them, and you’re going to start off with how they aren’t leaders, just two douchbags that step over everyone that isn’t ‘perfect’ like them.

_Defective,_ they had called Zim. _Worthless,_ they had shouted.

You _hate_ them.

You hate that Zim won’t open up about it.

No one has ever cared for him, and up until you came along and graced him with the feeling of real love, all he knew was cold stares and robotics to keep him company. The Tallests drove him away and he believed their lies because he was too emotionally inexperienced to notice. His planet despises him for his reckless actions. The worst of human beings call him a freak for his outgoing personality, and Dib is constantly belittling him for being a creature for another planet.

It isn’t his fault that he was born to a race that worships how tall a person is and not the loyalty of a devoted solider.

Zim’s dying inside but doesn’t know how to say it aloud. The Tallests were his everything—his leaders, his supposed friends, his mission. They were his world and they stomped on him and his devoted nature with one video call. You hadn’t been there to catch him in your embrace, to whisper in his ear that you loved him with your entire soul, and to block out his leaders insults.

If only someone had shown him some kindness before you came along. Some guidance, maybe. Anything would have been better than chasing him away.

You haven’t told him just how much you love him. At one point you didn’t think there was a reason to, seeing as Zim would have shut you down on the spot. Love wasn’t a word in his dictionary. He feels it, he knows it’s there, but he refuses to spit it up from his stomach. You were okay with saying it in other ways. Now you’re not so sure about that decision. Zim needs to hear it. Not get it from acts of service, gifts or physical touch.

You sit up in your bed, clutching your blankets tight in your clenched fists. On the wall farthest to your bed is a mirror and your reflection stares back at you. The features of your face are barely recognizable in the dark but you’re sure that your face holds some sort of teary-eyed, pained expression.

All of this thinking and yet you haven’t moved from your spot. Zim is probably down in that lair of his, mindlessly working on a new gadget to help a mission he knows was never real.

No, you’re not going to just lay down in your bed and go to sleep for the night knowing is hurting without someone there to hold his hand.

You pull back the blankets with a newfound determination. Your feet are already swung over the side of the bed when you hear a knock on your window. It’s light and you might have missed it if the room wasn’t so eerily silent in your pondering.

You take a look over your shoulder to find Zim pressed up against the glass, the metal legs from his pak holding him up to the side of the apartment complex. While shock wants to take over your thought process, you shake it away and prepare yourself for a long night.

You rush over to the window, flicking open the locks and pulling up the glass with an exasperated exhale. Zim stays where he is, looking you over for any kind of anger or annoyance at his unannounced visit but all he gets is a watery, almost pained smile.

You take a step back to let him come in but he stays put, eyes staring at you with a heavy sense of loss. His hands are pulled into his chest, antennae laid so flay against his head one might think he didn’t have any, and dark circles defining the roundness of his tired eyes.

You tip your head to the side lips curled into a frown. “Are you okay?”

Zim lowers his gaze, blinking slowly at the window frame. “I—I don’t _think_ so.”

You watch him internally fight with himself for a few seconds before holding open your arms, palms facing towards the ceiling. With a coax of his name from your lips, his eyes lift to meet yours once more.

“Come here. I promise not to bite.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, Zim is rushing through your window and straight into your arms. His face buries into the crook of your neck while you cradle his back with your hands, fingers weaving into his tunic to keep him in place. His whole frame trembles against you, but he’s so locked in place around your neck that nothing could move him but himself.

After shutting the window, you move around the bed back to lay back down. This time you climb under the covers with Zim curled in your arms, clinging to you like his life depends on it. He may depend on it in his mind.

You continue to hold him as close as he needs for however long he needs. One of your hands comes to rest on the top of his head, thumb running over the base of his antenna and lips pressed to his temple in a comforting kiss.

“You know you can tell me what’s wrong, Zim. I won’t make fun of you. I’m here to listen,” you whisper, voice small and almost inaudible.

When he finally pulls back, you’re able to notice how strained his expression is. The dried tears that had previously been running down his face before he made it to your window stand out against his green skin. His tiny hands reach up to touch your face, hair and neck. He begins to murmur under his breath about how _‘you’re here, not gone, my beautiful human, she’s still here’_ until he’s trying to convince himself that you’re not leaving more than trying to speak to you directly. 

“The Tallests _left_ me,” he chokes out, “they wanted to get rid of Zim. I didn’t—they left me all alone. No one wants Zim, no one wants me but _you_.”

You pull him closer, forehead pressed against his as he begins to let his pent up emotions overflow. Finally, the moment you have been waiting for.

“Please don’t _leave me_ like they did. Don’t abandon me. Zim has no purpose without you. I am nothing without you near with me. I’ll be all _alone_ again,” his voice cracks, claws gripping at your shirt to tug you impossibly close.

You quiet him by pressing your lips to his in a sweet, gentle kiss. His hands find your hair and he presses into the kiss as hard as he can without hurting you. You run your hands up his back and over the back of his head to give him stability.

It almost hurts but you know it’s his way of making sure you’re _here, safe in his arms and graciously accepting him as he is._ You’re not going to leave him the next chance you get. You’re pressed against his own flesh and not making an attempt to get away and that means the world to him.

You pull back, breathless. Zim, finally settled enough in his own worries in making sure that you still want him, lays back into your side. You take the time to peel off his black gloves and boots, all while whispering sweet nothings in an effort to calm his intense breathing.

His ungloved hand quickly snatches up one of yours, lacing his three fingers through your own. The heat of your hand causes his body to fully relax into the mattress.

“I _love_ you so much,” you lean down to look him straight in the eyes, “and I mean it. I’m not going anywhere, Zim. I don’t think you realize just how special you are to me. But hopefully with time I can change that.”

His face goes slack for a moment while processing what you had said. You can’t help but think him beautiful, even with his tear stained face and pale skin.

Before you know it his eyes crinkle at the confession, a grin tugging at his lips. His antennae lift to tickle the sides of your face, all while his hand squeezes yours just a bit tighter. He lands a chaste kiss to your jaw with a delighted hum.

“Zim loves you too, _my_ _precious human_.”


End file.
